Re: Question on internet database connectivity and electronic payment transfer

ajaysn_at_hotmail.com wrote in message <7hddbu$c07$1_at_nnrp1.deja.com>...
>
>How to link your database to your website (I know this is very
>elimentary). Basically, I want to be able to write an internet
>application which will access Oracle database server.

Nothing elementary about it actually. There are a couple of methods. CGI (common gateway interface) allows a web server to run a program on the server - this program then access the data posted by the user, does it thing (like accessing a database), and returns a dynamic HTML page to the web server, which in turn passes it back to the browser.

As the open standard CGI is a bit slow and has overheads, some webserver implement proprietary interfaces and methods. For example, Netscape support NSAPI (Netscape Application Programming Interface) and Microsoft's IIS supports ISAPI. Oracle's web server has a PL/SQL cartridge for example that can be used.

There are also other options, such as Java. A Java client program can use the Java ODBC to access the database on the web server. Microsoft supports their own thing of course - ASP (active server pages - think of Visual Basic in dynamic HTML pages) and ActiveX (a very poor alternative to Java) applications.

As you're also looking at electronic payment transfers, security and encryption are also key issues that need to be addressed.

IMHO you need to look at the business requirements first - what service do you want to provide ito ease-of-use, userbase (Windows only, or also Unix, Mac and other users), features, security etc. Once this is established you can investigate the technology and find the one that best meet these business requirements.

Nothing elementary or simple about it. :-)

regards,
Billy Received on Thu May 13 1999 - 04:40:46 CDT